23 confirmed dead in Azerbaijan air crash
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-24 16:39

Azerbaijan's national airline AZAL said all 23 people aboard a flight bound for Kazakhstan were killed when the plane crashed overnight into the Caspian Sea coastline.

According to an airport hotline set up for relatives, 10 of the 18 passengers were Azerbaijani and four were Kazakhs. The four other passengers were from Australia, Britain, Georgia and Turkey.

Wreckage of the plane outside Baku.[AFP]

"Everyone on board was killed. The authorities are investigating the incident," state-owned AZAL said in a statement read on the official AZTV television channel.

The British embassy in Baku confirmed that British citizen James Hardy and Australian citizen Dexter Allen were among those killed in the crash.

The wreckage of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane, which crashed late Friday seen at the crash site, in the Sabunchi region north of the capital, Baku, early Saturday, Dec. 24, 2005, with an Azerbaijani flag on the wreckage.[AP]

The plane, an Antonov An-140, crashed shortly after taking off Friday evening from the capital Baku en route to the oil town of Aktau, across the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan.

Five Azerbaijani crewmembers were also aboard, AZAL, which operated the flight, said.

An official from the prosecutor's office said it was too early to determine the cause of the accident.

"Fragments of the plane and the 'black box' have not been studied yet," Deputy Prosecutor General Rustam Usubov told AZTV.